Hi William,
The CRAN Chronicle committee (which I chair) decided upon this quarter's theme to encourage learning from each other's mistakes.
It's a challenge to come up with a handful of interesting, engaging ideas for articles for the Chronicle, which is published 4 times a year. To alleviate potential boredom among the Chronicle committee members and among our readers, we decided to come up with a publication calendar, including topics we thought would be interesting. In past issues, we've published stories about good things that have happened. For the Winter 2014 issue, we decided to focus on something that we hope will be humorous and educational for our readers.
Certainly one can learn a great deal from other's successes, but it's in sharing those sticky moments, tension-filled conversations, and preventable blunders (with which we can all commiserate, right?) that we become more aware, more compassionate, and make wiser decisions in the future. Surely we're not so proud that we can't laugh at ourselves?
Consider this excerpt from the meeting notes guiding the theme for this first 2014 issue of the CRAN Chronicle:
Who hasn't really botched something? Gotten fired. Told a client to take a hike. Missed that all important deadline. Forgot to include something really important in a set of drawings. All of these, and more, are learning opportunities.
Yeah, sure it's great to hear about "best practices" and get kudos for doing something well. But for learning, nothing beats a real screw up.
So in this issue of the CRANicle, we'll tell you all about some worst practices so that we all get a chance to really learn from each other.
Having said all that, we appreciate your interest in the CRAN Chronicle's content. If you would like to submit an article for consideration, please feel free to send it to the CRAN committee at CRAN@aia.org. There's no shortage of best practices, great projects, and teachable moments - but we need to know about them! I encourage you to submit an article for the editors to review.
Also, please keep in mind that the CRANicle is published for CRAN members, not for the general public. There are plenty of publications out there where the focus is on showing the benefit of using an architect. Our goal is to share information among professionals who provide residential architecture services, not to educate the public.
Finally to clarify: Isabella works as content curator, not dictator of the editorial calendar. When she reaches out on the Forums, it's as support staff for the Knowledge Communities. She takes her directives from volunteer leaders (i.e. the membership).
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Dawn Zuber AIA
Owner
Studio Z Architecture
Canton MI
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Original Message:
Sent: 01-16-2014 10:24
From: William Hirsch
Subject: Call for Submissions
Isabella;
Why are you emphasizing the negatives? I would much prefer to see a story about what went right, clients that are a dream, things to include in drawings that make the project go even better, and deadlines being met with room to spare. You might even throw in stories where budgets are met! Let's learn from one anothers successes.
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William Hirsch AIA
ARCHITECT
William J. Hirsch, Jr, Inc.
West End NC
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